Endrith's essence slammed against its prison, again and again, but it held.
The impacts sent ripples through the surrounding realm.
He was now little more than a dark shape suspended within a translucent boundary of power.
The irony was not lost on him.
He had spent an eternity trapped in this realm beside Endrith.
And now, after finally acquiring power, the first thing he had done was put Endrith in a cage.
"I suppose," Vellichor said, "this is progress."
Endrith struck the barrier again.
Vellichor stood before him, staring.
Endrith could not reach him.
He could not reach for anything.
"I spent an eternity wishing you would wake up."
Vellichor looked at the prison for another moment.
Then he turned away.
There was little point dwelling on it.
Endrith could wait.
An eternity, if need be.
Vellichor had something to work with.
And that meant he could finally return to the problem that had occupied him since he first became aware in this impossible place.
How could he leave?
He began by testing the boundaries of his own power.
Very carefully.
He gathered the energy inside him and did what was perhaps the most basic of magical acts: spreading his awareness.
He pushed it outward, trying to feel for the edges of the realm.
His new power was so plentiful that it felt as though he could spread his awareness across the entire world.
But there seemingly were no edges.
Nor did his awareness return, as though it had scouted the world and returned to him from the other side.
He tried another method.
He reached for the space around him and attempted to impose a distinction upon it.
There should be a here and a there.
An inside and an outside.
A true separation of things.
A simple way to leave.
He concentrated and gathered power.
But seemingly nothing happened.
He tried again.
And when he thought it wouldn't work, he tried again.
He almost created something that looked like a horizon, but it might have been nothing.
There was no break or tear.
No doorway.
No glimpse of another world.
It wasn't as easy as preventing Endrith from going anywhere.
As Endrith was almost nothing, an almost-something was more than enough to stop him.
But Vellichor needed an actual something to return home to.
To open a sort of passage and step through.
This place was obviously not simply another place.
A portal implied that two places already existed.
Two points, and a path between them.
This place was not a destination or an exit to anywhere.
Vellichor considered that.
Then he considered himself.
That was when another thought occurred to him.
Perhaps he had been approaching the problem incorrectly from the beginning.
He did not necessarily need to find a way through this realm.
He needed to find a way back to himself.
Vellichor looked down at his hands.
They were his hands.
At least, they resembled them.
He had reconstructed much of himself here simply by remembering what he was.
But this was not his body.
Not truly.
He was an essence.
Not a mind, or a soul, exactly, but the terminology of what he was did not matter much.
The Vellichor who had existed in the other world was somewhere else.
Assuming he still existed.
He hoped that his "self" remained in some shape.
If his body was still there, then perhaps this was considerably simpler than he had thought.
He did not need to create a new Vellichor.
He needed only to return to the one that already existed.
His essence needed a destination.
A connection.